A LONG-LOST Spanish painting has been found hanging in a Finnish art gallery.
The piece, Saint Peter Martyr, painted by Baroque artist Antonio del Castillo y Saavedra between 1650 and 1655, was thought to have vanished forever when it was separated from its original series in the 19th century.
The artwork, part of a set of saints once owned by the Dominican monastery of San Pablo in Cordoba, was lost after the monastery’s properties were sold off by the Spanish state around 1830.
For years, it was presumed the entire series, including this particular painting, was destroyed or lost.
READ MORE:
- ‘Ghost Town Grab?’: Jagger and Co accused of pandemic plagiarism by Madrid musician
- LIFE IN SPAIN: How Spain’s Christopher Columbus, the world’s greatest explorer, was clapped in chains 525 years ago this week
- IN PICS: Works of Catalan illustrator told to ‘graphically destroy Hitler’ by British intelligence appear in Barcelona’s famous MNAC
But the mystery began to unravel last year when Lotta Nylund, Chief Curator at the Villa Gyllenberg Art Museum in Helsinki, spotted an intriguing plaque during a holiday in Cordoba. It read: Saint Peter Martyr. Location unknown. “I thought, ‘I know where that painting is’,” Nylund told Finnish news outlet STT.
Upon her return to Finland, Nylund did some detective work, comparing the dimensions of the painting to historical records and literature.
Her suspicions were confirmed after collaboration with Spanish experts, including renowned Castillo scholar Jose Maria Palencia Cerezo, who travelled to Helsinki to verify the find.
The painting had been purchased in 1934 by Finnish art collector Ane Gyllenberg from a gallery in London, and its true origins had remained a mystery until now.
Click here to read more La Cultura News from The Olive Press.
